


Nothing Like Normal

by intotheruins



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Implied Autistic Sherlock, M/M, Sherlock Holmes Has a Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 04:58:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11373051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intotheruins/pseuds/intotheruins
Summary: From their first kiss to their first time, everything about being with Sherlock is unusual. John wouldn't have it any other way.





	Nothing Like Normal

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Nothing Like Normal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14431020) by [Alteas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alteas/pseuds/Alteas)



> This has not been gone over by a British beta because I haven't found one yet. I tried to use British spelling and phrases/words, hopefully I didn't totally mess it up, and if you spot an error please feel absolutely free to let me know :D.

There is a dead woman staring at John.

Which is ridiculous, of course—she can't actually be staring at him. Still, it's rather like looking at one of those fancy dolls with the glass eyes. It feels like she's looking at him, and John's imagination is doing exactly nothing to help steer him back to the comfort of logic.

Usually, the bodies don't affect John. He'll feel sympathy, or occasionally a distant kind of horror depending on the manner of their death, but they almost never bother him like this. Maybe it's the fact that she's been tossed on her back in a pile of rubbish, or the multiple stab wounds scattered over her torso—some of which are jagged, almost like the assailant attempted to tear them further open with his fingers. The thought makes him shudder.

Hands clasped behind his back, stance wide and shoulders set, John knows he looks every bit the soldier. It keeps anyone from asking if he's alright, and it lets Sherlock know he's there, if he needs him.

He almost laughs at himself. They've been doing this for over a year, but it wasn't until after the pool—after _Moriarty—_ that it became clear to John that Sherlock did, in fact, seem to need him. 

John's pretty sure he's never been so flattered in his life. He wonders what that says about him.

Sherlock has his pocket magnifying glass out and appears to be examining a plain silver ring on the woman's left hand. John watches, and wonders why Greg called them in for this one. It's obvious the woman wasn't killed here (no blood anywhere in the alley, or even in the body) and there's no ID on her, but that doesn't seem like enough for them to bring in Sherlock. Then again, John was just complaining to Greg a couple of nights ago about the lack of activity, and how Sherlock was dangerously close to a black mood. Maybe this is just a distraction for them.

Abruptly, Sherlock straightens and pockets his magnifying glass. 'John?'

There's his cue. John kneels down to do his own examination—age twenty-five to thirty, dead about twelve hours, glaringly obvious cause of death. He relays any and all information to Sherlock even though he's about 98% certain the detective has already worked it all out himself.

'Go on, then,' John says once he's straightened.

Just like that, Sherlock goes from quiet and considering to  _ movement,  _ body swaying and hands weaving through the air as he acts out his words. John often wonders if Sherlock is aware that he dances to his own deductions, which almost always leads to  _ can Sherlock actually dance?  _ When they first met, John would have been very surprised to see Sherlock doing anything so artistic—but he didn't know then that this mad man, so obsessed with  _ facts,  _ could also compose his own music, or stop to appreciate something as simple as the sky on a clear night. 

Sherlock's on a roll now, words coming faster and faster without ever stumbling into each other... something about the wounds,  _ he was trying to tear something out of her,  _ and John thinks suddenly, bizarrely,  _ I will never leave you. _

And just like that Sherlock stops, both hands held out in front of him and jaw lax, his eyes blowing wide. It's the look that says he's seen it, that piece that will lead him to the next clue, or to the killer. Only instead of rushing off, he lets out the strangest little huff of breath and lunges forward.

There are hands clamped around John's head, long fingers curling into his hair, and then Sherlock is kissing him, mouth closed and clumsy, pressing in just a bit too hard before he tears out of the alley, yelling at John to follow.

John does, of course he does, but not before a flurried handful of shocked blinks, or before hearing Greg laugh out the word, ' _ Finally!' _

~

One of the things John loves about Sherlock (and yes, he does love the git, has for a while now if he's honest) is how differently his mind works. Sherlock simply doesn't think like most people. The claim that he's a sociopath is laughable—John may not be a psychologist, but he knows the term is outdated and far too vague, and anyway, Sherlock's perfectly capable of caring about others. He knows without a doubt that Sherlock loves him, in his own way. That he cares deeply about Mrs. Hudson, and considers Greg a friend (even if he can't remember Greg's first name to save his own life). 

No, if John were forced to put a label on him—which he's actually not all that keen to do—he'd put Sherlock somewhere on the autism spectrum.

In the end, John doesn't care. Sherlock is Sherlock—he's oblivious to social norms (unless it's for a case), he sulks like a child, he sticks fingers in the toaster just to see what will happen, and John never has to wonder what he's thinking because Sherlock will always just say it, consequences be damned. (Though he does, in fact, have to worry about being occasionally experimented on, but he's accepted that Sherlock will never let him get hurt and just tries his best to ignore it).

The thing is, because Sherlock's mind is so completely different, he  _ doesn't notice  _ what he's done until the case is solved and they're back at home, John with a cup of tea and Sherlock flat on his back on the couch, hands pressed together beneath his chin. 

Turned out it was a hate crime. Some lunatic decided he could physically tear homosexuality from a person. Sherlock announced that it was boring, John didn't bother telling him it was not good.

John's decided not to say anything. He'll just wait and see. So he sits there watching the news, both hands wrapped around his cup, heat soaking into his palms. The case took them just under twenty-four hours. They've been home for forty-six minutes.

At fifty-two minutes, Sherlock swings himself upright and thrusts an index finger at John.

'I kissed you,' he says.

John doesn't even look away from the telly. 'You did, yeah.'

'Hmm.' Sherlock squints at him. It's an expression John finds ridiculously endearing, and it always means one thing—Sherlock is attempting to make an emotional deduction.

John puts his tea down and turns to face him, so Sherlock can find the facts in his dilated pupils and flushed face. 

Sherlock stares for a moment... and then explodes over the coffee table in a flurry of robe and curls and insanely long limbs.

'Need more data,' he mutters, and climbs right into John's lap like it's something they do every day.

John's more than a little okay with this.

~

Two weeks later, nothing's changed. Not really.

John has never moved so slowly with anyone in his life. He's used to charming someone into bed with him fairly quickly—has learned to do so even faster since moving in with the man who would text him with emergencies (both real and imagined) at all hours—but for those first two weeks it's like trying to walk through molasses.

Strangely enough, John doesn't mind. He thought maybe Sherlock just didn't know what he was doing at first; after the whole Irene business, he'd managed to get out of Sherlock that he was gay but that he'd never felt enough desire for someone to bother going after them. That thought is quickly dismissed when he realizes that Sherlock is treating the whole thing very much like an experiment, and apparently there's just no moving on until he's discovered every single way to draw noise out of John from the neck up.

On the fifteenth day, he leaves a spreadsheet open on his laptop, out where John can see it, and John just laughs and starts clicking curiously through tabs.

Sherlock has been  _ very  _ thorough. John's strangely flattered.

~

They don't date. After a month (Sherlock has now made his way down to John's waist and allowed John to remove his shirt, but he refuses to go further until he's finished collecting data) it seems ridiculous to even try. Sherlock seems to find people's typical ideas of romance appalling, and John doesn't care enough about them for it to be a problem.

Besides, he gets far better things instead. Like the unguarded look in Sherlock's eyes as John leans in for a kiss, or Sherlock's head laid trustingly in his lap while John reads and Sherlock wanders off into his mind palace.

And it's not that they don't make gestures. They're just not, in any way, typical. For Sherlock, it's moving the experiments that require refrigeration so that there's room for food, or just staying away from the kettle completely. It's kissing John distractedly on the cheek when John brings him his phone or his laptop, and trying very hard not to make fun of John's favourite TV shows.

He never succeeds in that last one, but John appreciates the effort anyway.

It takes him a little while to make gestures he thinks Sherlock will appreciate, but he knows he has it right the night he leaves his own spreadsheet open for Sherlock to find. It took him two weeks of note-taking and sorting and just figuring out how the bloody thing even worked, but it's more than worth it when Sherlock shoves him up against the wall and proceeds to use every ounce of data he's collected to drive John completely out of his mind in less than a minute. 

Strangely enough, one of Sherlock's favourite gestures is public affection. He beams whenever John allows an excited kiss after a brilliant deduction, or when John takes his hand in front of anyone from the Yard (though he seems to take a particular satisfaction from it when Donovan is present). John hasn't quite worked out why yet because Sherlock _likes_ being something a little to the left of human when he's around those who don't know him, or refuse to know him, and John just can't imagine him getting any enjoyment out of rubbing a bit of humanity right in everyone's face.

Then again, he's a contradictory bastard when he wants to be, so maybe that's exactly what it is.

~

It's been three months to the day since their first kiss. It's 4am, and John should be upstairs sleeping, would _normally_ be upstairs sleeping, but his mad (perfect) flatmate caught him wandering out of the bathroom an hour ago in nothing but his boxers and, well—

'You cheated,' Sherlock mutters beside him.

He's lying on the sitting room floor between their chairs, one arm flung over his eyes, chest heaving and cock softening against his bare thigh. John's on his side, his fingertips dancing over Sherlock's hip, eyes tracing that cock because he still can't believe it was in his mouth just a handful of minutes ago. There have been men before, a handful of times in the army, but it was always just hands and frantic kisses, anything to feel alive, really—but it was early and John was sleepy and Sherlock smelled _fantastic,_ and he didn't even give it a second thought.

'How did I cheat?' John asks finally. He traces a light fingertip over Sherlock's cock, grinning at the sharp intake of breath, the way his stomach muscles clench and his hips jerk with over-sensitivity.

'You were rumpled,' Sherlock says. And then, because he's a prat, 'Obvious.'

John says nothing. If he waits a moment, Sherlock will explain.

Sherlock sighs. 'Your hair was a disaster, you were half asleep, and you were wearing almost nothing. You looked soft and sexy at the same time. Cheating. I meant to move down your legs before reaching this point.'

His arm is still over his eyes, so John doesn't even try to resist the wide grin threatening to crack his skull in half. That he can have this kind of effect on Sherlock, that Sherlock used the word _sexy_ to describe him, is a thrill he doesn't think he's getting over any time soon. Possibly ever.

'Has the experiment been ruined?' John asks cheerfully. He presses a hand flat to Sherlock's stomach and smooths it upwards, thumbs a nipple just because he can, because Sherlock's sensitive there and John might enjoy over-stimulating him a bit too much.

Sherlock sighs again and removes his arm. His eyes are far too clear, too awake, for four in the morning. 'It might be salvageable. How clean are your feet?'

He's been living with Sherlock too long; the question doesn't even seem strange to him. 'I'll pay them some extra attention when I shower.'

'Mm. Good. When will that be?'

Huffing a soft laugh at the impatience in Sherlock's voice, John dips forward to press a kiss to his shoulder and says, 'At a decent hour. After I sleep some more.'

'Oh. Sleep.' Rolling smoothly to his feet, Sherlock stomps over the coffee table and snatches a blanket off the back of the couch. Then he's back, flinging himself down with his usual lack of care and tossing the blanket over them both.

'The floor isn't exactly comfortable,' John points out.

Sherlock gives him a sharp, narrow-eyed look that John interprets as _you can't possibly move now, I've brought you a blanket._ John really must love him because, god help him, he thinks that look is adorable. 

'Couch?' Sherlock offers after a moment, only to glare when John laughs at him.

'Bed,' John insists. 'Yours is fine.'

Sherlock's eyes narrow, his lips curling into a predatory— _possessive—_ grin. It doesn't surprise John in the slightest that Sherlock likes the idea of John in _his_ bed. The idea of belonging to the detective probably shouldn't be as so appealing, but then again, John accepted that his sanity was a lost cause a long time ago.

'Yours,' John repeats softly, kissing the corner of Sherlock's upturned lips.

The smile softens, just a bit. 'Yours,' Sherlock murmurs back to him, and John has to duck his head into Sherlock's shoulder to hide his helpless grin.

It's the closest Sherlock's ever come to expressing sentiment out loud.

He stays there for a moment, pressing kisses to Sherlock's cooling skin until he's regained something resembling control over his own facial features. Then he staggers upright, dragging Sherlock with him until they're finally, _finally_ falling into bed together.

It doesn't escape John's notice that Sherlock very deliberately settles into the side of the bed furthest from the door—giving John an easy escape route—but he doesn't comment on it. Sherlock would feel compelled to scoff at the gratitude, or explain it away. Someday, John's going to find out why, what made him that way.

For now, he's just going to settle back into Sherlock's chest. He's going to smile when Sherlock snakes an arm around his waist, and laugh in surprise when Sherlock kisses his cheek.

He's going to think _I will never leave you_ and know that, somehow, Sherlock can hear him.

 


End file.
